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<title>The Sunrise Came, and It was Beautiful by Betwixt__t</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29452683">The Sunrise Came, and It was Beautiful</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betwixt__t/pseuds/Betwixt__t'>Betwixt__t</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Fix-It, Gen, Golden Age of Camelot, Minor Character Death, No Angst, Uther Pendragon Dies (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:01:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>910</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29452683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betwixt__t/pseuds/Betwixt__t</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a world, out among the stars, where the Seers saw what Uther Pendragon would become and what he would make of his son with the martyred memory of his wife; and thus every single magical being across the land, the fairies and the elves, the sorcerers and the druids and the dragons, to a man they said: No.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Arthur Pendragon &amp; Igraine Pendragon, Merlin &amp; Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Sunrise Came, and It was Beautiful</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There is a world, out among the stars, where the Seers saw what Uther Pendragon would become and what he would make of his son with the martyred memory of his wife; and thus every single magical being across the land, the fairies and the elves, the sorcerers and the druids and the dragons, to a man they said: No.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When an army assembled outside of Camelot calling for Uther’s head, there was a panic, for what worth had common folk ever had in the matters of kings? But the army passed through the city like a wind, rustling leaves but disturbing nothing, fleet on wings of magic, and before the day was out Fae assassins had buried Uther in a king’s grave, much as many claimed he didn’t deserve it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Queen feared for her life, and begged desperately for them to spare her unborn child; until the Faerie Queen herself explained, gently, that the reason they only attacked now was because Uther had served his purpose: he had sired his son, and now he had to die before he could ruin everything. Arthur Pendragon, it was foretold, would be the golden king of a new, endless age of Camelot, where all, magic and non alike, could live together in harmony. They had no desire to harm their golden king, or his harmless mother; in fact, they wished to watch over her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so the Queen spent nine months free as a bird, able to go anywhere she wished, but watched over from all sides by Fae guardians. Fae nursemaids checked her health, brownies cleaned her rooms - and they did the same for her friend that carried the baby who would one day be Lady Morgana - though that mother was quite concerned when all her pixie handmaidens kept cooing about the baby’s power.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then childbirth came, and it was painless and near-bloodless under the skilled Faerie hands. The Queen fully expected to awake to find they’d taken her son; but instead, she found him cradled against her breast, and the nursemaids filing out of the room to give them time alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lady Morgana’s mother was given the same treatment; and baby Arthur and baby Morgana were laid down to sleep together, fed and changed and watched by elves while their mothers slept and recovered and returned as soon as they were awake. Both were blessed with long life and good health and strength and all manner of good things; and when the Faeries were sure the kingdom would settle under Queen Igraine’s rule and both her and the prince could manage on their own, they began to withdraw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s only one problem with this: Humans are insidious, in their passions and seductions - the dragons tell beautiful lies, the fairies spin blinding phantasms, but humans are something else altogether. For you see, even as a select few nursemaids and brownies kept the castle, Faeries and elves and spirits and sorcerers had begun finding their way into the city proper. And the common people did what humans do best: adapt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So when Fae royalty tried to force a removal of all their people from the city, they fetched up hard against the brownies moving into homes that fed them well, the elven maids and Fae lads who were courting human lasses and men, in a romance that was whirlwind for the long-lived Fae and plodding for the humans. It caught on a prospector business, just recently opened, a joint endeavor of a rich man and a company of dwarves; it stuck on the lumberjacks unwilling to lose a suddenly thriving business in producing wooden nickels for metal-averse Fae who still want to participate in the capitalist nightmare; and the exodus halted entirely when confronted with a simple forest spirit and a milkmaid, whose wedding date was already set. He couldn’t leave before it happened, and he certainly couldn’t leave after. And then the entire idea completely fell apart when someone pointed out that the Faerie Queen had taken a human serving maid back to her home in Avalon, and she, like all Faeries, unable to lie, responded with “Well, she doesn’t try to weasel her way out of orders like the rest of you lot!” and went flouncing back home with an entourage of human servants all looking to expand their resumes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And thus it was that when a young man named Merlin, the most powerful sorcerer in all the land, came to the castle many years later, he came to a court of lord and knight, human and spirit and Fae, and announced himself openly. He came because his father’s crop had not produced well that year, and he could not pay his taxes; so the sorcerer, half-jokingly, offered up his services in payment. And the king, likewise half-joking, took the greatest magical might in all the land and appointed him his manservant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one quite knew why the house pixies kicked into a tizzy over this, but they are silly creatures, so no one cared.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <span>(The castle of the Faerie Queen is actually in shambles, because all of her servants are constantly slipping out of their contracts to go play in the fields. The few presentable areas that guests see are the places she cleans herself, with her own magic - up until she hires her contingent of human maids, and suddenly she’s hosting guests like there’s no tomorrow. (The Fae were so unwelcoming before because it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>embarrassing</span>
  </em>
  <span>))</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>In reference to the throwaway line about the Fae participating in the capitalist nightmare - I am aware that a medieval kingdom would have just discovered mercantilism and would likely still be operating mostly on a barter system. But. Consider. Uther one day looks out at his kingdom and goes "okay, the peasants are already starving to death, how can I make their lives worse - I know, I'm going to invent Elon Musk".</p><p>Also, my beta reader put forth the brilliant idea of the Fae mounting a gamestop-type attempt to tank Camelot's equivalent of the stock market, for fun and profit, which was just too good not to put in!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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